NY Giants all-time starting roster: defense

OLB: Lawrence Taylor

The best defensive football player in NFL history and the greatest football player of all time played his entire career in New York. Lawrence Taylor played 180 games over the course of 13 seasons with New York and racked up a ridiculous amount of accolades.

Taylor was the NFL MVP in 1986, won three NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards (1981, 1982, 1986), was NFL Defensive Yookie of the year in 1981, was named First Team All-Pro eight times, was a 10 time Pro Bowler and more.

Most importantly, Taylor was a two-time Super Bowl Champion (XXI, XXV). If you aren’t old enough to have seen Taylor play, just know Bill Belichick said he was the greatest defensive player he’s ever coached:

OLB: Jessie Armstead

Carl Banks was a legend on the field and is still a legend in the Giants radio booth, but I had to give the second outside linebacker slot to Jessie Armstead. The Giants selected Armstead in the eighth round of the 1993 NFL Draft and the legendary outside linebacker played nine seasons with Big Blue, recording 30.5 sacks, 778 tackles, 565 of which were solo tackles.

Over the course of his Giants career, Armstead was named to five consecutive Pro Bowls (1997-2001), won an NFC Championship, two NFC East titles, and was a First-Team All-Pro member in 1997. He was inducted into the Giants Ring of Honor in 2010. Armstead was the leader of the 2000 Giants defense (No. 2 in the league that season) that marched their way to Super Bowl XXXV.

In that game, Armstead picked off Trent Dilfer and ran it back 43 yards to the end zone for a touchdown, but it was called back due to a holding penalty by Keith Hamilton. That call completely swung the game and led to a blowout loss to Baltimore.